I liked this book a lot even though the topic is not easy to digest. It is dealing with domestic violence and a father who is embracing all that's new and Western in the post-colonial Nigerian society in which he is an influential person. In his exegeration he has become a Catholic fundamantalist, lives strictly by the rules and forces his family to do so too without acknowledging the equally Catholic canon of emphathy. This is how Kambili, the girl who tells her story, grows up. The tension between Papa's Western education and old values still lived by his father and extended family introduces the reader to an African culture which can be found all over the continent: pagan festivals, ancestor worship and witch doctors. But exactly through this tension not only the differences but also the similarities become evident. Would definitely recommend and will read more books by this author.